I think there is no one single rigid beekeeping method, even the basics. I see lots of variation in beekeeping methods. This is good and right!
No method ever remains exactly the same without adapting and evolving over time. Different folks have different BKing needs, as well. If nothing else, our environment and outside conditions effecting bees changes. I'm not ready to dismiss or riducule other people's ways of keeping bees if they feel it works for them for years.
As to tolerance and 'communists'... (
what the heck?? LMAO! next thing will be that all small cell proponents are
TERRORISTS! LOL! call Homeland security!) ...I see
all sides in this dog fight doing plenty of defending of their favored methods and attacking the other guy's methods. There seems to be little tolerance from
either side over 'there'.
Way too much flinging of derogatory words like 'misguided', 'cult', 'radical', 'kooky', etc. You'd think we were talking about Charles Manson! :shock: 'Natural' beekeepers (I hate that term, because keeping bees in boxes is unnatural anyway) like Michael Bush or Chris Harp or Sam Comfort etc etc are fairly 'charming' people (well almost all of them...lol), are very dedicated to their methods and have 'followers'. I really like what these guys do and promote for the most part, but...I consider myself capable of thinking on my own and even as a beginner I took some of what they said with a grain of salt. Am I a 'cult follower'? Am I actually deluding myself and running headlong towards a terrible cliff along with a herd of lemmings? I believe that most people will figure out their own way if presented with several options and theories.
Beginners usually make
way more serious errors than buying small cell foundation could ever be-
why get so upset about it?? I'd wager just as many beginners lose their bees in the first 2 years on regular foundation as they do on small cell foundation. Reading the forums here over several years, I see that beginners lose their bees all the time to varroa mites and other problems in their first 3 years
whether they treat them or not! Beginners regularly get discouraged by failure and quit. Others try again and keep learning and experimenting. The first couple years are typically spent making hands on mistakes and learning from them.I see a pattern where more beginners seem to doom their first hive through over manipulation/disruption, accidental queen loss and injury, improper treatment strategies, or mis-diagnosing queenrightness than through anything else.
How many of these beginners have doomed their first hive simply by having small cell foundation?
I started with Don K.'s small cell bees, I don't treat for anything at all and no varroa problem yet in 3 yrs. They were good healthy bees, and even better now that they are mixed with my local genetics. I also learned to split my hives and make new queens to help ensure vitality and break the mite breeding cycle. This I feel is important too, and is part of the overall learning curve that beginners should learn about, or at least read about. Nobody with a brain should doggedly follow only one person's advice in beekeeping when there is so MUCH wonderful information available out there for us today. But would any of you rant at me if I suggested to my newbie friend that they start the same way I did with small cell bees, would you call me misguided, cultish, or whacky? If so, then feel free, it don't bother me one bit! I'll just keep doin my thing.
I fully understand why methods like 'natural cell'/foundationless, Warre hives, small cell, and top bar hives appeal to the new generation of green-minded new hobby beekeepers. Why
wouldn't anyone understand this?- it's
obvious why! These are not wacky or cultish ideas any more than biodynamic or organic gardening is. They're just
different ideas.
Anything that gets people excited about keeping bees in their backyard is ok by me. What they do as they learn and evolve as beekeepers, or whether they quit, is up to them.
Luckily we have lots of tolerance
here though! ....right?
